A LONG-TAILED TIT BIRD

This tiny ball of fluff with an impossibly long tail, has almost doubled in numbers since the 1980s. These flying lollipops flit from one tree to the next, pause, grab an invisible insect, and then move rapidly on.

They have sociable habits: youngsters from a previous brood will often help their parents raise the next one, in what scientists call "co-operative breeding". You never see a lone long-tailed tit. One is always followed by another, then another, until a host of them are flitting around you, seemingly fearless.